A Salute To Those On The Chopping Block (Part 2) – The Dramas
1. Journeyman (NBC) – As I mentioned in my Life On Mars post, time travel hasn’t held a place in Americans’ hearts in the past few years. So, the main character involuntarily being thrown back in time probably didn’t help win the Nielsens. The unfortunate part of all that was how well crafted the show was, to a point where you could almost forget the sci-fi and fantasy aspects of the premise – it turns out that fixing the time stream can throw your family life into a tailspin as well as any run-of-the-mill absentee father story. The episodes were split between the title character’s missions and this familial strife, which was balanced incredibly well. Too bad more people didn’t think so…2. Moonlight (CBS) – Okay, the parallels to Angel, the Buffy spin-off about the do-gooder vampire with a detective agency, were obvious before the show ever aired. The problem was how bland and hokey this version would be. The show focused on Mick St. John (Alex O'Loughlin) and his somewhat inappropriate fixation on leading lady Beth. Why so creepy? Well, Mick saved Beth from another vampire when she was a little girl, and has been vamp stalking her ‘til she was age appropriate – giggity-goo! Anyway, Mick liked to stroll around in the sunlight (in this mythology, the sun does an Easy-Bake oven version of frying on vamps) with his shirt wide open, whining about why he’s not human anymore – this got old pretty quick. The overall story was fun, but even Jason Dohring’s (who will forever be Logan from Veronica Mars to some) more relaxed role as a millionaire vamp didn’t give the show that little boost it needed.
3. Canterbury’s Law (Fox) – This could have been Julianna Margulies’s next big role, following her as Elizabeth Canterbury, ruthless defense attorney. She was charismatic as always, and surrounded by a great supporting cast including Aidan Quinn as her hubbie. Where did it go wrong? They went too dark with the leading lady too quickly. Granted, they dumped this in the dreaded mid-season, so they knew they had to work fast to establish the characters. But going from learning that someone stole her son when she wasn’t looking to making her a borderline alcoholic to wrecking her marriage to sleeping with a private dick to jury tampering, all in six episodes? Too much for most to process…
4. Women’s Murder Club (ABC) – Another mid-season dump, this show actually could have been a contender – it got farther than most by getting another 3 episode order after the writers’ strike ended. Based on the series of books by James Patterson, it centered four women – a police detective (Angie Harmon), an assistant D.A. (Laura Harris), a coroner and a reporter - working together as friends and as a team. The great part of the show was that it could survive as a weekly procedural (though much less grisly than its counterparts), but it also worked well with an underlying serial killer mythology (the Kiss-Me-Not killer, the mystery man they’ve been hunting for years). Unfortunately, the last batch of episodes wasn’t enough to catch any new viewers, and it ended up in the scrap heap.5. Jericho (CBS) – This was a holdover from last year’s cancellations – fan response to losing the show was overwhelming, and CBS allowed the show to wrap up its plotline with an additional seven episodes. With the WGA strike, though, most hoped that this post-nuclear attack drama would gain momentum against a backdrop of reruns on other stations. Not so much, unfortunately…
6. Bionic Woman (NBC) – Unlike other contemporary remakes - like the fraktastic Battlestar Galactica (which is also produced by Bionic’s David Eick, and lends the talents of Starbuck’s Katee Sackhoff as a rogue bionic agent), this one was not destined for greatness. Critics wrote this show off, and many pointed fingers about the casting of Isaiah Washington so soon after his cast-off from Grey’s Anatomy in response to his homophobic slur - and switching out the show-runners in the process didn’t help. But Bionic could have been a success – the general premise of Jaime Sommers’ bartender-turned-superhero angle was nothing new and the dark and gloomy oh-so-secret agency was cliché, but the family dynamic of the troubled teen sister and the goofiness of some of the background characters helped throw in some balance. But with only 8 episodes in the can, the strike decided this sleeper’s fate – no more episodes to even wrap it up. There’s no coming back from that car wreck, Jaime…7. New Amsterdam (Fox) – We all wanted to like this one – the premise of a man given immortality until he finds his one true love sounded intriguing. But this show was meant for a fall premiere and kept getting pushed back because the writers never seemed to have a sense of what direction they should go. The overall plot was fun, but when lead character John Amsterdam (played by Nikolaj Coster Waldau) comes across as emotionless and disinterested, can you spell d-o-o-m-e-d? Fox can.
Next up: Renewals we’re thankful for. See you then…
(Again, for a full list of what’s new, canceled or brand spanking new, go here.)
